


The Visitation

by starkraving



Series: A Slight Variation [6]
Category: Shadowhunters (TV), The Shadowhunter Chronicles - All Media Types
Genre: Asmodeus is a demon and his way of thinking is kind of alien, Domestic Fluff, Emotional Abuse, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Magnus-centric, Torture, demon magic is also awful, fear not, hes also just awful, light malec, right at the end, so are demon politics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-06
Updated: 2018-05-06
Packaged: 2019-05-03 06:31:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,652
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14563023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starkraving/pseuds/starkraving
Summary: “It may horrify you, but you are a part of me. And so long as you are, I will prize you above all others. What I feel for you is very much like love.”- A one shot about demon psychology and immortality. AKA: Asmodeus has a conversation with Magnus whether he likes it or not.





	The Visitation

**Author's Note:**

> Sort of a post-episode coda to episode 3x2 “The Powers That Be”. After the ley-line event. Some head canons about Asmodeus and demons in general. Because Magnus was like “I haven’t seen Asmodeus in centuries” so I was very curious what the last meeting was like. I literally made a timeline. Gawd. Nerdy. NOTE: slight edits were applied after the release of the Spring Finale.

_London, 1853_

 

 

“Happy birthday, beautiful.”

Magnus looks up in time to smile before Catarina puts a mug of coffee and a cupcake down on the counter by his elbow. There is a single white-wax candle jutting from a questionable heap of frosting and sprinkles. The confection appears to have suffered the night at the bottom of a shoulder satchel and it smells mouth-wateringly of chocolate when she slides the little treat across the table. She lights the wick with a wink. Magnus knows it’s been a rough day when he feels himself getting raw over it.

“How on earth did you remember?” he says, wonderous of her.

“When the times get tough,” retorts Caterina. “That’s when marking the memories matters most, Magnus Bane.”

Then she cups his cheek. Her hands stink of alcohol, of magic, like that fresh aloe vera perfume of healing which does not quite mask the reek of blood. Her hair’s short, braided down against her scalp. Under in the dim lamp light, she doesn’t have a lick of make-up on her perfect brown complexion. In the face of war, Catarina goes utilitarian, goes bare-faced, goes minimal. Trousers and turtlenecks whether it’s proper nineteenth century London fashion or not. Magnus, put in the exact same conditions, drags kohl dust and gold into his skin and comes to a fight in a three-piece suit.

“May the next time be under better circumstances,” she says.

 “Oh, my dear Catarina.” Magnus stands to gather her in his arms for a moment, ducks his face against her hair. He sighs, “What would I ever do without you?”

“Die of boredom,” she says, squeezing him. “Now sit down and take a break. Doctor’s orders. I’ll find you something real to eat once the wolves are out of the woods. I think we have some measure of vodka back there somewhere.”

Magnus laughs, leaning back. “It’s not whiskey and a steak, but it’ll get the job done.”

Catarina smiles but the radiance dims fast, grows somber. “I called you into all this, didn’t I? Again. I always do this to you. Because you’re so good in a fight and I’m always getting into the very middle of trouble. I’m so sorry.”

“Nothing to be sorry for.” He cups her face gingerly, earnestly. “I’d never ignore a call from you, Cat.”

Her hands slide to his elbows, gripping a little. “I’m really glad you came. It’s terrible of me, but I am. It means a lot, you being here for the werewolves. Ragnar did his best, but he’s always been more academic than persuasive.”

“He has his hands full.”

“And so do I. Magnus, I have to head back to the Sevastopol. Once I get these guys back on their feet, I need to go. You’ll get them out of London won’t you?”

“You’re going to the warfront, Catarina? Why?” He shakes his head. “Haven’t we seen enough of that?”

“Warfare is where I live,” she says softly. “I’m a healer, Magnus, but don’t follow me there this time. Stay here. Fix this if you want to fix something.” She hugs him again, tightly. He feels her palm the back of his head, blunt fingernails against his scalp. “Happy Birthday, Magnus. You’re so much brighter outside of war. Remember that.”

Catarina leaves him then to tend the wounded, but her words stick to his ribs like a pin, a cold steel point bored into bone because, god, one can always find the fight with Catarina. He thinks, _This city might kill me before my next birthday._ Because cupcakes or no, they’re crammed in the back of an extremely dingy Downworlder safehouse while a variety of werewolves in states of dying, dead, and dead tired struggle through regenerative fatigue.

War’s begun on Crimean Peninsula, and in London, a Downworlder purge.

It looks like a war zone in here already and it speaks to their history that they don’t call this a front line.

Magnus drinks his coffee and rubs an aching crick out of his neck. There’s definitely something strong and magically imported in his mug. It warms him up from his heart to his hands and when he feels better, he renews the wards at the doors and windows. He does it via transcription, using his fingers to draw the sigils of the spell on the table top in front of him – much less hand waving involved and he doesn’t feel like standing up to do it. The marks on the wood flare, burn like a brand, then dim. He wipes the mark away with his palm and sighs.

“Nicely done,” says a voice.

Magnus looks up.

There’s a tall, handsome, Indonesian man in an expensive three-piece suit standing by his table. His hair is long and drastically out of fashion, but he seems out of time in a way that forgives it. His suit is a black with a red cravat tie, and diamond cuff-links glint from his sleeves. Dark, almond-shaped eyes peer intently down at him from features so dramatic, they run the razor’s edge of too harsh, but straying just barely into beauty. Magnus has never seen him before... but he seems familiar. Like a face he'd seen then eroded buy the passing of immortal life. 

The fact of his ethnicity is enough that Magnus is drawn out of his work. He sits up a little, folding his arms on the table in front of him.

“Thank you,” he says. “Are you one of Tara’s wardworkers? I don’t mean to step on any toes.”

“No. I’m not a warlock,” says the man. His voice is very gently accented.

Hazarding, Magnus says in Malay, _“Do you speak…?”_

The man smiles and replies in kind. _“I do. Have you missed it?”_

 _“A little,”_ says Magnus, gesturing to the empty seat across from him. _“It’s my first language. I don’t get much occasion to practice it.”_

The man starts to take a seat. _“Yes. You still pray in Malay, isn’t that right?”_

Magnus startles back to English. “What?” He starts to gather his magic on reflex, a gut-check against a sudden suspicion. “How did…?”

The man tilts his head. He blinks and his gaze is cat-eyed gold.

Magnus stops breathing.

“Magnus Bane,” says the demon in the black waistcoat. “Come. Let me get a look at you.”

He raises a hand, golden fingers curled gently and with the second knuckle of his forefinger, he hooks the point of Magnus’ chin and tips his face up. Just a half a degree. Just enough to be for show…

The problem is Magnus can’t move.

He hasn’t been able to even blink since this man sat down. For the last five seconds he’s been trying to speak, to stand up, to _scream_ , to react even an iota physically to the man sitting down with him. But the muscles in his throat won’t do the work. His entire goddamned body in on fire, a seething, screaming boil of magic thrashing like the sea inside his skin, but he can’t… he can’t manifest it. Like it’s boxed inside his bones.

All he can do is sit there, pliant as a doll, while the thing in a fine black suit turns his head this way and that. Like an art appraiser assessing the lines of a piece he might buy. His thumb is coiled heat, a cigarette burn against Magnus’ lower lip, just barely brushing his mouth where the man grips his chin between thumb and forefinger.

“You grew up a little,” he says. Then smiles. "You have your mother’s looks."

 _Oh, God,_ Magnus thinks, too paralyzed to speak the words. _Oh fuck. Fuck no…_

The demon is indifferent to his horror.

He moves his touch from Magnus’ chin, ghosting fingertips along his jaw, to the line of his cheekbone, running the back of his fingers languorously across his skin to the curve of his ear where he touches the suggestion of a scar there. His touch is… gentle. Idle. Self-indulgent. His thumb glides across Magnus’ temple, stroking aside a longer section of his hair, the part you can almost tuck behind his ear and this familiar gesture is exactly what the demon does.

“You recognize me now?"

He does.

Magnus tries to _rip loose_  of the concrete slab his body had become, his bones shackling him to this fucking table while his heart and lungs shred themselves in an animal panic. Magnus manages to move his fingers, torturously slow, the joints in his fingers creaking just a fraction, his fingertips dragging up until his nails are digging grooves in the wood. Sweat forms at his lower back and brow. He’s breathing fast now. His throat burns like he’s sprinting flat out. Every fiber of muscle straining, electrified with magic but gaining _nothing for_  it.

“That’s an admirable effort,” says the demon. “But you needn’t bother.” He sits back. “It's been some time, Magnus.”

“Don’t,” Magnus manages to barely whisper, his teeth aching in his skull to do it, his lungs viced by a terrible crushing pressure. “Don’t hurt… anyone…”

“I won’t. But only because you asked it of me.”

Magnus is shaking now with the effort of resisting. He gasps through his teeth and wrenches against the magic strapping him in place with everything, every _ounce of_  will he has and – _fuck!_ – he feels his right shoulder dislocate with a quiet pop. His entire body ignites into an instant pillar of molten pain with his shoulder as the screaming locus of it. His eyes flood and his breath hitches. He can’t cry out. So, he just… breathes raggedly, a moan behind his teeth.

Asmodeus sighs.

He sits forward and slides a hand along Magnus’ bicep and the pain slides away with his touch. He grips Magnus’ shoulder and with the gentlest twist he sockets the bone back into its proper place.

“I don’t have much time in this realm, Magnus. I’m here on this business.” He sits back, folding his hands on the table top. “Calm yourself. Then we can talk.”

Magnus forces himself to slow his breathing. To stop struggling even as he feels the bind of the spell slip even tighter, like a garrote around his neck or a noose around his wrists – any slack he’d managed by fighting instantly torqued so tight he can feel his own pulse in every inch of his body. Still, he forces himself to just breathe and then sit there like a man with a gun to his head.

Eventually Asmodeus nods.

“I will allow you to speak.” He sits forward and again takes Magnus’ chin between thumb and forefinger, drawing so close Magnus can feel the dull heat off his skin. Not a human heat, but a strange inanimate heat. Like the heat off fired clayed from the kiln. He says, “If you draw attention to us, I _will kill_  everyone in this place. In ways that will baffle your mind, boy. So… behave.”

And then he lets go. Magnus immediately feels something slide from his throat, like a hand releasing his windpipe and a weight slides off his shoulders. He shudders. He keeps his hands where they are, knotted against the top of the table. It takes him a second to gather himself, to force himself to believe that the creature in the three-piece suit will not gut – screaming, alive, horribly – every living soul around him.

Then he says, softly, "I _banished_ you."

Asmodeus doesn't quite leer, his lip curling off his pale teeth. "Oh, dear boy. Did you really think it would be so simple?"

Fear hurts when it's intense enough. Magnus is _aching_ with it, shaking with it. 

“What do you want?”

“What does any parent want?” Asmodeus reaches into his breast pocket and produces a fine gold cigarette holder. “I want your time, Magnus. Will you indulge me?”

“I have a choice?”

“No.” Asmodeus unclasps the cigarette holder and selects one for himself. “But it would please me if you said ‘yes’.”

“Oh, well if it would _please you_ ,” Magnus says, through his teeth.

“Is that a ‘yes’?” the demon asks mildly.”

 _“Fuck you,”_ Magnus says in Malay.

Asmodeus smiles and the tip of his cigarette begins to smolder without the aid of a match. His mouth is full of smoke when he murmurs, “Atta boy.”

Magnus _seethes_ through his fear. “Why are you here?”

“To talk,” says the demon, unfazed by the hostility. “You’re seven-hundred and thirty now.” He picks up the cupcake that Catarina gave him, inspecting it with a bemused kind of interest. “The oldest child I’ve ever sired. The most powerful to walk this earth. It's been long enough. I gave you your time despite your... behavior.” He tosses the cupcake and it lands in a garbage pail by the door. “I have a proposition for you.”

Magnus glances around the room. No one seems aware of what’s happening at his table and, in fact, seem to have forgotten he’s here at all. Their eyes slide over him and the chair he’s seated in without registering his presence in it. Perception charm or a glamore of some kind. The air around him is starting to… sour somehow. Taste of whatever magic it is that the demon has brought to bear.

“How do I even know you’re Asmodeus?” Magnus says.

The demon considers this. “That would be brazen to falsely claim my name.”

“Still,” Magnus says. “You could be any demon. Wearing a false face.”

“You know me by my true face, yes? From your texts?”

The man smiles. And he smiles. He smiles, the corners of his mouth stretching hideously backward, the flesh splitting like the skin of a rotten fruit to accommodate and his teeth aren’t teeth anymore but an interlocking serration of needle-white fangs, glistening in a black maw that plunges far deeper than the human façade he’s seeing. His eyes are molten hollows, burning carbuncles set in a demonic skull. He does not speak but his voice penetrates Magnus’ head, vibrating in his brain until he wants to _die from_  hearing it, saying, _‘DO YOU WANT TO SEE MY TRUE FACE, BOY?’_

“No!” Magnus cries.

The room ignores him.

“ _No_ ,” Magnus says again, voice raw. “I believe you.”

Asmodeus settles back into his seat. He’s a handsome Indonesian man in a suit again.

“I thought so. Now, what do you know of Edom? Your little spies are everywhere, trading gossip for a lick of your attention at the crossroads. Tell me what they’ve told you.”

“They’ve said Edom is going to war,” says Magnus.

“Yes. Chaos comes for the mortal world and the kingdom of Pandemonium gathers its forces to likewise war against its neighbors.” He smiles. “For we are all so much _stronger in_  times of blood. When all is done, the landscape of Edom will have changed and I intend to have more of it for myself.”

“I don’t understand,” Magnus says. “The war with Russia is going to be that terrible?”

“Ah, no. Not this war. You’ve been traveling Europe. If you went back to Jakarta, you might know what’s happening in Guangxi. But, then again, demons have a nose for this kind of thing.” He takes a drag from his cigarette and breathes. “Hell doesn’t excite itself over mortal war unless it’s going to be big, Magnus. And let me tell you, this matter in the East?” He chuckles, slow and satisfied. “It’s gonna be a _big_.”

For a moment Magnus says nothing, then, “How many?”

“How many what?”

“People are going to die.” Magnus swallows. “How many need to die for your kind to care?”

Asmodeus smiles. “You were alive during the Mongol conquests.”

Magnus’ guts turn to lead. “You’re exaggerating.”

“No,” the demon says, smiling. “Like I said: It’s gonna be big.”

“So this world goes to war and hell… what?” Magnus shakes his head. “Has a sympathy war?”

“War is our party, little one.” Asmodeus gestures with one hand. “Chaos is our revelry. The time for change. The misery of this realm fuels the engines of Edom and this next war, the one you aren’t even aware is going to happen, well… the forges of my kingdom are already hot in preparation.” He laughs and the sound needles through Magnus’ skin. “It’s going to be a _hell_ of a time.”

“What does this have to do with me?”

“It’s an arms race, Magnus. I have designs on claiming substantial territory in this time of war, as do my rivals. They gather their weapons against me.” Asmodeus sits forward. “Many warlocks will start dying soon.”

Magnus’ tenses up. “What?”

“They’re culling their children,” says Asmodeus mildly. “The older ones and, in some cases, even the young ones. Their immortality fed like fuel to the forges of their war machines. My greatest rival has killed all his children, sparing not even a minute for each of them to keep for themselves. And his kingdom burns mighty for his efforts.” A shrug. “It’s a premature harvest in my opinion, but it does force my hand.”

Magnus feels cold suddenly.

“Are you here to kill me?” he asks.

Asmodeus tilts his head. “I am giving it consideration.”

A numb dread closes around Magnus’ lungs and it must be on his face because the demon rejoins, placating.

“You misunderstand,” says Asmodeus. “This isn't punishment for your betrayal. No. I've... not forgiven you, Magnus, but I wouldn't punish you for that. You were young. You'll understand, in time, what a gift that was but until then, your exploits give me _joy_ , Magnus. I don’t _want to_  kill you, but the facts of my tactical position force me to consider it.” Asmodeus pauses to take in a lungful of cigarette smoke, the ember glowing bright in his eyes. “It may horrify you, but you are a part of me. And so long as you are, I will prize you above all others. What I feel for you is very much like love.”

For a moment, Magnus just stares.

Then, “ _What_?”

“I’m a demon, Magnus. And you’re my child. Through you, my power enters the mortal world. Your works are, in a way, my works.” He smiles and his tone is almost warm as he says, “What prince of hell doesn’t delight in seeing himself venerated and feared?”

“I’m not feared,” Magnus says. “And what you feel for me is nothing like love.”

Asmodeus angles his head. “Are you not in London for the very purpose of your reputation? The wolf packs rally their courage to have Magnus Bane at their side. It’s fire they want from you, not friendship.” He shrugs. “And what is love? Is it not the ideation of another being because doing so grows your soul, in some fashion?”

“You don’t love me,” Magnus insists, hands aching, the blunt edges of his nails digging into his palms. “What you did to me..." His voice fails. It fails until he speaks through his teeth. "What you did wasn't love. You don't know what love is. You don’t love me.”

"I saved you, Magnus."

"You... you didn't _save_ me." Magnus shakes his head, barely, trembling. "You _destroyed_ me."

Asmodeus regard him curiously. 

"You survived because of me," he says, genuinely puzzled. "I _do_ love you.”

Magnus can taste blood. “You do _not_  love me.”

“If I didn’t love you,” Asmodeus says gently, “then I would take your immortality now.”

“Then just do it and be done with it,” Magnus snaps.

Asmodeus considers him.

Then he sits forward, blowing a breath of smoke politely away from Magnus, as if to argue an academic point with him. Then with his free hand he reaches across the table. He places his fingertips against Magnus’ chest, just beneath the hollow of his throat and when he does it, Magnus feels the entire fabric of his soul _wrench_ inside him. The magic that is woven into every aspect of his existence suddenly splits open, peeling apart in his chest like his sternum has been cracked – suddenly, violently, split wide beneath the demon’s touch.

Magnus tries to _scream_ , but he can’t get the breath to do it. He’s frozen again, immobilized by that terrible crushing force from before. He can’t do anything but endure the sanity-stripping sensation of demonic magic sliding into the core of him, like fingers digging through the arteries that hold his heart in place, closing around the muscle like you grip an apple to pluck.

There’s a word in his throat, ‘no’ or ‘stop’ or ‘ _fuckingJesusChristthishurts’_ but Magnus can’t know which one because his throat won’t work. He just sits there, shaking, sweat sliding down his jaw as the demon closes invisible coils of magic around some indefinable core of him, almost gentle, as if to avoid bruising the very thing he threatens to rip out.

“You should know,” says the demon, his eyes reflecting the glow of his cigarette, then holding that hellfire burn. “If you agreed to give me your immortality – in true pact, rather than mouthing off – this would be painless.”

The demon turns his hand at the wrist, like a thief with his fingers on a combination lock and Magnus nearly blacks out, immediately, mercifully as he feels his magic _separate_ from him like peeling skin from screaming web of nerve. The pain is white hot, relentless, unimaginable. His fingers claw at the table but it’s the only thing he can do, his mouth parted on a scream that has no sound.

Asmodeus watches his face, almost cat-like curious. He monitors every second, every breathe, every moment this drags on, one tier of pain breeching into a new, fresh, and horrifying level of previously unknown agony. Magnus tastes blood but he isn’t bleeding. He smells fire but there is no flame. He’s being gutted but there’s nothing happening. He can’t stand it and he can’t even beg for it to stop.

“There is no pleasure this,” says Asmodeus. “Do you understand now? How it would break my heart to kill you?”

“You don’t…” Magnus can’t get out the next words. His vision swims, blacking at the edges. He holds onto his own voice, holds on, choking, “You don’t have a heart.”

Asmodeus lifts his fingers from Magnus’ body and the pain instantly resolves into nothing, his magic sliding back into place and smoothing back inside him. Magnus jerks back in his seat, mobile suddenly, and buries his closed fist against his breastbone, gasping, sobbing helplessly through his teeth. Hysteria is a razor dragging deep through red, carotid parts of his soul until he feels hot, hemorrhaging, and lightheaded in the wake of it. It takes him a whole thirty seconds to stop his breath from shaking.

Asmodeus is snuffing out his cigarette an ashtray at the edge of the table.

“I don’t want to kill you, Magnus.”

Magnus hasn’t found his voice yet, so he just looks up through sweat-slick bangs, slowly unwinding his fingers from the fabric of his suit vest. His hands shake even as he lowers them. Asmodeus is watching him. The lingering halo of tobacco smoke still drifts at his shoulders.

“I can manage my affairs in Edom without sacrificing you to the pyre, but I require something from you.”

“I won’t… give you anything,” Magnus pants, shaking so hard his teeth threaten to chatter. “I’ll never help you.” He jerks, choking, as that horrific crushing force seizes hold of him again, locking him in place. Still through the panic and the pain he manages to grit through his teeth: “I  _hate_ you. _”_

“I know,” says the demon. He leans forward again, fingers curling at Magnus’ jaw. “But I don’t care. There is too much work to be done. Now, show me your real face. Let me see you.”

Magnus feels his passive glamore being peeled off him like strip of medical tape, ripping it off until his eyes are naked and gold in the dim bar light. He still can’t move. He can’t do a damn thing to stop it when the monster says, “Yes, there you are,” then leans forward and kisses him gently, chastely, on the cheek and where the beast’s lips touch him, he feels a burning brand of magic sink like a red-hot poker through skin and sinew straight to bone and he _still can’t scream_.

Asmodeus gathers his head in his hands, so he can pull Magnus closer, gently force head to one side and murmur, softly, in Magnus’ ear, “I’ve given you some of my magic.”

Magnus tries to speak, tries to say ‘ _no’_ but his mouth can only form the words.

“Here is what I know,” says the demon. “You burnt down your childhood home and left your mother’s body to char. You’ve sold pieces of yourself to every manner of monster. I know your real name and I know that, for the time that I showed you real power... you _liked_ it." His breathe is dark fever against Magnus' skin, burning through him like a heat knife through wax, deforming him on contact. Asmodeus cradles his head, cards his hair from his brow and says, "I know that above all things, you’re afraid and you’re afraid and you’re afraid and your _fear_ drives you to do any and all things to survive.” He smiles against Magnus’ ear and his smile is made of ten-thousand teeth. “So whether you like it or not, you _will_ use this magic. Even if you hate it and you hate me… because you will need it.”

“Don’t,” Magnus begs, afraid suddenly, so much more afraid than before. “I don't want it. Take it back.”

"Then agree to come with me," the demon breathes, a sick eagerness in his voice. He runs a thumb, gently, along Magnus' jaw and the controlled affection in the gesture it makes him want to tear his own eyes out. "Come to Edom," says the demon, "and I spare you this penance."

Terror eats him like battery acid.

"I can't," Magnus pleads. "I _won't_. Please, don't. _Father,_ don't."

Asmodeus leans back, so he can look Magnus in the eyes as he says, “Oh, it's too late for that, my boy..”

Then he kisses him. His breath is burning iron on Magnus’ tongue, like inhaling from a furnace, like his lungs are _burning_ from the inside… and then he’s gone.

The room is back to normal. The seat across from him: Empty.

Magnus immediately starts screaming.

He falls out of his chair and hits the wood panel floor on his hands and knees, doubling over, clutching his throat and chest and the entire room heaves like an earthquake hit its foundations and two of the four walls crack instantly, plaster falling from the ceiling. Magnus lies gasping on the floor. He feels no less than three werewolves race to his side, hands closing on his arms, soothing over his ribs, searching for an injury, jutting bone, blood, anything to warrant the animal noises coming out of the warlock.

“Get it out!” Magnus is screaming. He claws at his own face, where the demon kissed his cheek. “ _God_! Please!”

“What’s wrong with him?”

“I don’t know! He just started screaming!”

“Please!”

“Get his hands! Don’t let him cast!”

“You think holding his _hands_ is going to stop him?!”

“ _Please_!”

Magnus sobs, but they’re grabbing his wrists, pinning him on his back. His spine arches off the floor before snapping back the other way and they try to hold him down, stop that agonizing spasm that’s threatening to fold him in half. Someone else grabs his legs and that’s when Catarina falls to her knees over him, her hands catching him by the nape of his neck. The moment she touches his skin though… she _knows_. He sees it in her face that she knows, feels the new and burning current that’s coursing through him and how it licks her hands like lightning, burning along her palms.

“Oh, Magnus,” she whispers. Her hands glow blue, push cool healing power into his skin, smoothing over the slow crawling fire that’s possessing him. “Oh, by god. What is this?”

“What’s wrong with him?” says one of the wolves, terrified.

“Get out,” she rasps, horror in her eyes, recognition in her voice. “Get everyone and get out of here! Get away from us! It’s a curse!”

Magnus yells and his skin starts to burn, a deep red flame spreading across his body, over the expensive fabric of his clothes, sheeting him in fire. The wolves lunge away instantly, but Catarina grabs his hands and holds them fast in her own. The flames char the floor beneath him. They spread across Catarina’s hands. Her fingers blister and burn even as she regenerates them over and over in an endless cycle of death and healing – her skin bleeds, bursts, blackens, then grows back. She pushes through the miasmic magic to keep her hold on him.

“Magnus, honey, you need to help me,” she shouts. There are tears in her eyes. “Whatever this is, you gotta get it under control. Okay? I need you make this yours. I can feel how it’s in you, like a living thing running wild, and you have to get a grip on it.”

“I can’t!”

“Yes, you can. You have to. It’s gonna burn up everyone. You gotta take it. You gotta swallow this magic. I’m so sorry. But you have to.”

“Cat, please!”

“I can’t help you!” Catarina is a body of blue and white fire, her glamore boiling away. “It’s stronger than me. But you’re stronger than I am, Magnus. I’m right here. I won’t leave you.” And to his horror she pulls him, burning, into her arms and holds him. “I won’t leave you,” she swears as her clothes catch fire and her hair begins to ignite with a smell like cooking skin. “I’ve got you. I’ve –”

 

* * *

 

“—got you, Magnus! Wake up!”

He opens his eyes and Alec Lightwood is kneeling over him in the dark. He’s wearing a sleep shirt and sweat pant and his large, archer-tough fingers are gripping Magnus’ shoulders in a way that suggests he’s been shaking Magnus for that last thirty seconds or so. When Magnus opens his eyes, Alec immediately moves one hand from his shoulder to his cheek, sliding up into his hair in that way he finds comforting. Doing that again and again rapidly as Magnus lays there, breathing too fast, his skin tacky with sweat.

“Hey,” Alec says, a worries little smile in his voice. “Hey, Magnus, you with me? You awake?”

“I – Alec. What…?”

“You were having a nightmare I think,” Alec says slowly, like he not convinced that Magnus is entirely awake and doesn’t want to confuse him. He cards his fingers through Magnus’ hair, simply unfazed by the sweat-slick wreck that it is. “I woke you up. Is that okay?”

Magnus calms down in increments. “Yes. Thank you. I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“Waking you.”

“Naaaah,” Alec drawls and even in the dark Magnus can see the crooked grin. “I was having trouble sleeping anyway.” That’s a lie, he was snoring in bed by the time Magnus finished brushing his teeth. His other hand Alec moves over Magnus’ heart, pressing his palm there through the thin fabric of his sleep shirt. He seems concerned by the wild pulse he feels there. “You good?”

Magnus draws one knee up, sighing, and takes Alec’s hand from his hair, instead turning his face to press a kiss into the worn creases of his palm. It’s like grounding wire, like lightning coursing to ground from his skin through the callouses in Alec’s hands, until there’s no tension left. Just a boneless exhaustion. He realizes his glamore slipped.

He looks at Alec with cat’s eyes.

“Yes,” he murmurs. “I’m good.”

Alec runs a thumb across his cheek. “You’re showing me your eyes. You know that?”

“Yes.”

“Is that okay?”

“Yes. It’s fine, Alexander.”

This doesn’t happen very often. Despite his boyfriend’s protests that he, in fact, finds Magnus’ real eyes beautiful and natural and nothing to hide, he knows Magnus has his personal reasons for altering his appearance. So, it’s with a careful fondness that Alec leans down and presses a kiss against his forehead. It’s so easy, so familiar, it brings a stinging joy to his throat.

His partner leans back. “You wanna talk about it?”

“God, no.”

“Okay then.” Alec lies down beside him, rather man-handling Magnus a little to get his arms under and around the warlock, pulling him into full body embrace and ducking his face against Magnus’ neck. He kisses him there until some of the tension slips from his shoulders, his hands roving idly looking for the best place to settle in and hold him. “Whatever you need, just tell me, okay?”

“Of course.”

“Sure you’re okay? I could get a glass of water or –” He starts to get up.

“Don’t you dare.”

He settles back down around Magnus. “Okay.” A beat. “I’ve never heard you have a bad dream before. Does that happen much?”

“Not much, no.” He hesitates. “It happens more, when I’m low on magic.”

“Oh. I guess you would be tapped.”

“Purging ley lines is very taxing,” Magnus murmurs, tracing patterns along the length of Alec’s forearm. “I’ll be fine tomorrow.”

Alec’s voice is getting sleepy against his shoulder. “I love you, okay?”

“I love you too.”

Minutes later, Alec is snoring again. His arm is going to go completely numb by the time he wakes up because Magnus is lying on it and the thought makes him smile. When he’s sure that Alec is dead asleep, he rolls a little, turning in Alec’s arms to face him, sliding an arm around his waist. He presses his forehead to the shadowhunter’s chest and listens quietly to the slow thump of his heart. He closes his eyes. It’s that sound he falls asleep to and wake up to in the morning.

**Author's Note:**

> Someone talk me about this show. I'm dying. Questions and comments are read, answered, and used to fuel more ideas. Greater demons are facinating. 
> 
> FYI: Catarina and Magnus are in London and therefore caught up in the Crimean War which killed just short of a million people. Asmodeus is talking about the Taiping Rebellion which killed anywhere from 20-100 million people.


End file.
